


Plagues And Locusts

by J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Autism Spectrum, Covid-19 pandemic, Doctor!John, Don't copy to another site, Drama, Infection, M/M, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Work stress, anaesthesiology, dorky medical husbands, he's just so focused on his own things, neurosurgery, surgeon!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: As the planet succumbs to a coronavirus pandemic, how are our favourite London doctors faring as they prepare for the ordeal?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 103
Kudos: 261





	Plagues And Locusts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Grey Matters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5419364) by [J_Baillier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier). 



> [[an index and guide to all my Sherlock stories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011148)]

"John Watson."

"John. John, someone's cancelled my case."

"Sherlock? Why aren't you using your own work phone?"

"You ignore me sometimes when I try to call you from it."

"So you've… what? Stolen the OR Ward Sister's phone?"

"No, she's right here, and keeps insisting my case is cancelled."

"Can this wait? I'm in a meeting."

"No, it _can't_! They've cancelled my surgery, and I'm already at the surgical ward."

"Then go do something else?"

"But the patient has a tumour, and I need to operate on it! It's hardly going to get smaller if it has to wait!"

John sighs, pinches his nose and gives an apologetic grimace to the seven people waiting for him to resume the briefing he'd been giving to the other service sector heads about how the OR unit epidemic preparations are advancing. "Can you… just give the phone to Fiona, will you?"

Sherlock harrumphs, but complies.

"Hi, John." Fiona Barry, the grand old lady of a Ward Sister the neurosurgical OR unit is graced with, greets him amicably. "You need to come collect your husband so that I can get some work done," she jokes.

John hears some indignant, spluttery muttering from the man in question in the background. "What's the hitch?"

"As per your instructions, we've postponed all elective surgery of non-malignant disease until further notice, except for cases from the surgeons' list of exceptions which can't wait."

"This operation clearly needs to be on that list!" Sherlock declares in the background.

"Any reason why it's not?"

" _Someone_ ," Fiona starts pointedly, "just told me they don't read pointless emails. Such as those containing instructions that all surgeons go through their lists and report these exceptions. It's a meningioma, has been monitored for several years, and it doesn't yet interfere with the patient's ability to work."

"Right. So, it can wait. Can you give the phone back to Mister Holmes?"

"It's still growing, and needs to be operated on eventually," Sherlock declares.

"Right now, it has to wait. You get to keep all of your malignant ones where the patients are eligible for intensive care afterwards and not one foot in the grave."

" _You_ cancelled my case?"

"By extension, yes. I gave the order to postpone everything we don't have to be touching right now. Half of the unit's respirators have been moved to the extra ITU we're furnishing."

"There's no need for an extra ITU yet."

"Wouldn't you want it to be available when we do start needing it?"

"They could borrow a respirator from there for now."

"Just so you could do your meningioma? Sherlock, I don't have time for this right now; I'm in a _meeting_!"

"Well, what am _I_ supposed to do now? I'm in scrubs."

"If you can't find a single patient in this hospital who could benefit from your services, you can go volunteer to pack sandwiches at the cafeteria."

Instead of people being able to use tongs to grab pastries, everything needs to be individually plastic-wrapped right now to prevent Covic spread.

Sherlock hangs up on him.

_________________

John is inhaling a pizza slice for lunch in his office; he's too snowed under with the all the preparations and trying to stockpile enough plastic visors and FP-3 grade face masks for OR staff to take thirty minutes to go down to the cafeteria. Besides, staff have been discouraged from doing so because keeping a distance of at least one metre between patrons is a challenge there.

His phone rings, and he hastily wipes his greasy fingers on a tissue before fumbling around his pocket for his mobile.

"John."

"Why are you calling my mobile?"

"I didn't know where you were."

"Miraculously, I'm in my office."

"But you're at the anaesthetists' weekly meeting at this time every week. I tried there."

John sighs again. It wouldn't be the first time Sherlock would have stormed in there demanding that John or whoever he has decided should cater to his whims should attend to his needs immediately, regardless of whether they could actually wait or not.

"All meetings with more than ten people have been cancelled or turned into Skype ones, which you'd know if you bothered with your emails. You could still try my work phone when we're at work and all."

"Why are we still discussing this?"

"What is it, then?"

"I need a spinal tap."

"You're supposed to do it yourself or call the emergency anaesthesia number if you need an urgent procedure."

"I did, and your registrar is being disobedient. So I need you to do it."

"Explain." John is in a suit, not scrubs, and he needs a damned good reason to abandon ship with his admin work to go do scut work at the neurosurgical ward.

"The ENT case I did with Collings is having acute dysarthria, is conscious but won't communicate beyond just the occasional word. I've done a CT and an MRI and an EEG and lab work, and there's no diagnosis."

"So elevated ICP has been ruled out, and the platelet level's normal?"

"Yes. There may be encephalitis or meningitis. I need a spinal tap."

On occasion, Sherlock sounds a bit like those Youtube meme videos about surgical single-mindedness. "Why won't the reg do it?"

"Idiot nurse shot them full of enoxaparin. It's been prescribed once a day because of the surgery and the malignant diagnosis. I've no idea why it wouldn't have occurred to the staff to hold off on it until we had a diagnosis."

Whichever registrar is involved, John is suddenly proud of. "You know that's a strong contraindication if there's no life-saving reason to do the tap."

"Meningitis and encephalitis can be life-threatening, and I have no diagnosis."

"Have you talked to neuro?"

"Why would I talk to neuro? What they can do, I can do. And more, I should add."

"Will it change your management plan if someone does the tap?"

"Not per se; I will have to start the patient on a broader spectrum antibiotic and an antiviral, anyway."

"But you still want some poor bugger to stick a needle in their back to create a potentially spine-threatening bleed since the patient's fully anticoagulated?"

"You could reverse it with protamine. I researched the pharmacodynamics and with a slow infusion––"

"Sherlock."

"I can't see why establishing a diagnosis wouldn't be more important than a marginal––"

" _Sherlock!_ "

"What?"

"If you want that tap, go do it yourself. We're not a maid service. If you want to take the risk, make sure you've explained it to the patient and their family and documented the whole thing, and do it yourself."

"I can't explain it to the patient; in the state they're in, I doubt they even understand where they are."

"Then, if it won't affect your treatment plan, I strongly suggest you scrap the tap."

"You're no help at all," says a suddenly much clearer baritone from the door. Sherlock is standing there, phone in hand, pouting at John.

John hangs up and rises to his feet. "I can't keep mopping your messes. I thought we were past this. Just… just try to manage? I know it's…" He grits his teeth, "…I know it much get on your nerves more than average when things keep changing all the time, and stuff gets cancelled, and you can't get the services you're used to as fast as before, but we're in the equivalent of war, Sherlock. I have twenty per cent of anaesthetists off sick or quarantined after returning from skiing holidays and whatnot, a hell of a mess to sort out with helping organise commute transport for lots of staff, and that's just the beginning.

Sherlock looks unconvinced.

"Come with me," John says and grabs his coat.

Sherlock is never deliberately self-centred, but it's hard for him to put himself in someone else's shoes. John knows his husband can't operate on just vague, abstracts things the connection of which to his own work he cannot see. He can't and won't change his behaviour based on just vague ideas and lists of instructions: he needs concrete proof before he can shift his viewpoint. Evidence. _Data._

That's why John marches him downstairs to A&E and silences his enquiry about what the hell they're doing there with a glare. He leads Sherlock to the makeshift plexiglass-and-plastic wall cordoning off half of the A&E department as a Covid-19 unit.

Inside, staff are bustling about in full protective gear. Patient trolleys and beds have been shoved into any free corner, used disposable equipment litters the floors, and there is resignation, exhaustion and sweat on features of the staff visible from underneath visors, masks and protective eyewear. A team of four are intubating a patient with alarming stats on the monitor. A baby cries in the arms of a coughing mother wearing a mask sitting on a trolley.

John stabs the plexiglass with his finger. " _This_ is why I can't be your errand boy right now."

Sherlock blinks as he takes in the scene. Family members visits are banned at the all the regular bed wards, the staff at the OR units are well protected from symptomatic patients, and John and Sherlock's commute takes them safely through a staff entrance at the back of the building. Neither of them has been here at the front lines, battling the hordes of Covid-19 patients plus the regular inflow or urgent and emergency cases at the King's A&E department.

"I––" Sherlock starts, visibly shaken by the chaos on the other side of the plastic protecting them from the viral outbreak that has swept the globe and shut down most of the world economy. "Can I do something?"

"You can continue to do your job, to care for your patients, to volunteer to help out at the intensive care units when we need to establish more doctor rotas. You can stop whining, solve your own damned problems and let me try to work with the rest of the brass to reallocate resources where they're needed and to keep this hospital afloat even after we run out of beds and equipment. Can you do that?"

Sherlock nods. His fingers then grab the edge of John's jacket sleeve. "This is why you've been so strange at home. You know what's going on."

"Yes, and I didn't think you needed to understand the full picture until shit really hit the fan, because you don't function well with distractions and changed plan. We're reaching that stage soon, though."

Sherlock lets go of his sleeve. "Malosa."

"What?" John turns to look at him.

"We've been through extraordinary circumstances and pulled through. I didn't _know_ there _were_ extraordinary circumstances yet. You kept that from me."

John bites his lip. "Yeah, because you don't notice stuff that doesn't interest you."

"I do know there's a pandemic."

"I know you do." John had been reciting key news to him every morning, but he can never be sure if Sherlock actually absorbs anything he says if he's really thinking about something else. "I need all hands on deck. Lestrade will be back in two days. Until then, you and the other neurosurgeons would do well to just sort out your own territory and work on triaging your OR cases so that we know which of them we need to try to manage even with all this going on," he says, cocking his head towards the cordoned-off bustle.

"Alright," Sherlock relents. He then frowns. "When are you on call next?"

"Not until the week after the next. All unit heads have been taken off the call rotas because they need us during the day and to limit exposure."

"Good, that's… good." Sherlock still looks concerned. "I don't want you to get it."

"It's likely we both will. Working in healthcare and all."

John's phone chimes. He's subscribed to the BBC News Corona alerts. He reads the message, squares his shoulders and shows the screen to Sherlock. "PM's ordered a lockdown."

"Oh. I assume that doesn't apply to us?"

"Nope. Everyone else gets to isolate themselves at home, but we'll be here. First Brexit, now this. And they're not even postponing Brexit. What's next — fire and brimstone and locusts?"

Sherlock steps away from the plexiglass. "I'm going to go make that case list and deliver it to Fiona."

"Good." John stands down from his parade rest and prepares to return to his duties.

Sherlock lingers behind in the foyer; John summons the lift but then turns to face him again.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"The mortality rate is low compared to several other zoonotic coronaviruses."

"Thank fuck for that."

"We should be alright. Many others won't be, but…"

"Should be, yeah. Nobody knows, though."

Sherlock's expression is sober. "We'll be alright. We can't operate on any other assumption. It's the likeliest, and the most constructive."

John nods just as the lift pings. He glances at his watch. "Have your reg call me; I'll help negotiate what we should do, but I can only spare five minutes." Sherlock's patient is already in the hospital, has been operated on, and deserves just as good a care as all the corona patients. Best case scenario is that they can sort the patient's issue out and transfer her elsewhere, which might mean better protection from Covid than being in a major London hospital. Sherlock is not being a nuisance — he _is_ doing his job, even if he's a bit of a steamroller about it. "Come on. We'll sort this, and I'll try to get off duty at five. You about done once you work out what to do with the spinal tap?"

Sherlock nods. "I've given my report to Anderson who's on call. I just couldn't leave this to him to manage."

They enter the lift and stand side by side. No need for the one-metre safety distance since they sleep in the same bed.

"Who knows how things will look in a week or two. We'll go home and have a nice night in."

"Acceptable plan. Need to stop by at the store, though," Sherlock points out. "We're out of toilet paper."

John snorts. "Better make that a stop at five different ones, assuming any of them have a single packet left."

— The End —

**Author's Note:**

> As I'm writing this, much of Europe is in lockdown, Spain and Italy are facing a public health disaster the likes of which hasn't happened since the Spanish flu of 1918, areas of the US is seeing massive numbers of cases and the Nordic countries are scrambling to slow down the progress of the epidemic before they run out of ITU beds. For my work, currently, it's very much a calm before the storm kind of a stage, and maybe the most stressful thing is not knowing when and how badly our hospital and my family and friends will be affected. All we can do is our best, and to R&R whenever we can. Take care, my fellow fans. Let's enjoy our fic lives as a wonderful distraction.
> 
> Ps. This isn't John's first rodeo planning for a coronavirus epidemic. The threat of one happened [in this earlier part of the series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14811786/chapters/34272216). Thankfully that virus never hit this fictional version of the UK.


End file.
